The Third Atomic Bomb: Japan's Atomic Bomb

In August 1945, during the final stage of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in human history.

I lived in Japan 1951-1961.

It was still primitive then.

Exhausted and impoverished from war is one thing. Primitive is another meaning. Think large parts of precolonial Africa, the Americas, and Australia.

Sure it's doable, but doing it without being spotted isn't as easy. I simply don't think that a Japanese sub could have made it from Japan to the East Coast undetected. Also, I can't find anything about it's actual range when submerged, but I assume it drops significantly.

But keep in mind that, at the time, the US was throwing everything it had into the Northern Pacific in preparation for the invasions of Japan. I don't think anyone was thinking of the possibility that a Japanese sub would show up anywhere else (except for off the Panama Canal, maybe), let alone in the Atlantic.

The Atlantic fleet anti-sub groups were gone. Many of the ships went to the Pacific, others were decommissioned (the WWII + 70 threads here the last several months have documented how drastically the UK and Canadians were drawing down their anti-sub fleets even before VE Day) and the rest were starting to be used for Magic Carpet runs back and forth across the Atlantic.

Once the subs got out of that area, and recall that they made it almost to Ulithi undetected before the surrender order came in, there just wasn't a lot even potentially in their way. Because no one at that point was looking for an enemy sub that would be doing what they'd be doing.

“I am amazed at how many ignore the cooperation between Nazi Germany and the Japanese during the war, including the technology for advanced weaponry transferred to the Japanese.”

I’m not ignoring their cooperation by any means at all. I’m only responding to the claims and insinuations that the Japanese were supposed to be reliant upon the Germans for most or all their technical expertise in the research and development of an atomic bomb or bombs. There are too many people who like to trivialize the Japanese scientific and engineering capabilities because of their race and/or national origin. In particular, it should also be recognized how the Japanese requests for Uranium oxide and certain atomic bomb related nuclear physics research earlier in the war had been denied by the Germans. Hitler and his Third Reich did not become more forthcoming with cooperation in the field of nuclear physics and supplies of Uranium oxide until it became relatively obvious Germany was about to overrun by the Allies. Only after the Germans decided a Japan possessing an atomic bomb technology would not later prove to be a rival to the Third Reich and its ambitions for world conquest did the German Government turn a blind eye to the Japanese false claims of medical research and ship significant quantities of enriched Uranium oxide to Japan.

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